Report 133
Report #133 Skillset: Phantasms Skill: Phantomsphere Org: Geomancers Status: Completed Feb 2009 Furies' Decision: We will implement a variation with different numbers. Problem: The current all-or-nothing nature of phantomsphere makes it pretty impractical. You'll either totally obliterate someone who doesn't see it coming, or totally waste your time for a very small chance of a mental affliction on someone who knows how it works. This strong possibility of spending considerable time building up to as many as 4 spheres yet doing virtually no real harm is what discourages the use of phantomsphere. 0 R: 0 Solution #1: This will be long, but bear with me. It's not complicated, just long-winded, I swear. Add a new syntax to the phantomsphere skill, PHANTOMSPHERE DETONATE. This attack, the only phantomsphere attack you can use while you stand in the same room as your phantomsphere, will cause your phantomsphere to explode into shards or splinters of phantasmal energy, which fly across the room into your personal enemies' skulls and causes them to experience extreme terror, the trauma of which leaves them physically damaged (20% of their health in unblockable damage). This will also cause a chain reaction with any embedded phantomspheres inside the minds of any who get hit, causing each embedded phantomsphere to also explode and do 20% in unblockable (curing the embedded phantomspheres in the process). In short, 20% + 20% * embedded spheres. Detonating on someone with 4 spheres will do 100% his health and kill him in the same spirit that phantomsphere attack would. This solution would allow you to cause real, proportional harm with phantomspheres without getting 5, including some collateral damage. Player Comments: ---on 2/24 @ 07:33 writes: Can't you just load up every room in the demesne with 4 spheres and just instagib any enemy group that walks into it? There definitely needs a limit to the number of spheres, or I can't even understand supporting something that does 20% unblockable damage a hit ---on 2/24 @ 07:42 writes: Nothing should be doing 20% unblockable damage a hit. Especially when it is 20% + 20% per sphere in the room. ---on 2/24 @ 15:10 writes: It's a lot more limited than you think. You can only have one sphere summoned at a time, and it takes eq to move, attack, and even look with them. If it worked like you two apparently thought it does, don't you think you'd have been instantly lamed by the insta by now? :P ---on 2/24 @ 18:08 writes: I think part of my wording may have been unclear. PHANTOMSPHERE ATTACK embeds a phantomsphere in a target, not the location. The chain reaction I was talking about was with the phantomspheres embedded in this target, and it'll do 20% + 20% * spheres to only him, the collateral damage to personal enemies remaining at 20% (unless they too are afflicted with embedded phantomspheres). It's on a per target basis, not one guy has 3 spheres and therefore the whole room loses 80% of their health. That's clearer, I hope... ---on 2/25 @ 16:04 writes: I understand that it is per target not per room. However, I still stand by nothing should be doing that much unblockable damage. Make it psychic damage and I am more inclined to agree with the proposal. ---on 2/25 @ 17:16 writes: A single avatar wrath does that much damage over a 10 second period (2 ticks), and that's totally passive. Also, for reference, my boulderblast does around 21% of fully deffed targets' health when there's 3 people or less in the room, and that's a single eq as opposed to the multiple eq's of phantomspheres. ---on 2/25 @ 17:19 writes: Also remember that unlike boulderblast/hailstorm or wrath (at least until the nerf goes through), only -one- person can use phantomspheres because it requires a meld. ---on 2/26 @ 02:13 writes: 20% unblockable damage is one thing, 60-80% unblockable damage where the only way of avoiding it is leaving the demesne - and this in a situation where you're already likely to be struggling across the meld to even hit the mage - is pretty fierce. I understand that phantomsphere has its issues now, but ranged combat - particularly in something as hindering as a mage meld - is just too "eh" in IRE to really want to buff it this much. In groups it'd probably take too much setup time to do much good though. ---on 2/28 @ 20:19 writes: Esano and I have played around with phantomspheres a bit - for a ranged attack, it takes quite a bit of time to set up fully to pull off the instakill. However this report as written is suggesting that the detonation can only occur when the target is in the same room as you? If I remember how phantomspheres work, you can only stick them on someone if you are not in the same room, yes? For this new ability of detonate, then, you'd have to hunt them down to use it, or wait for them to get to you - would this be too easy to pull off, with stuff like rubble hindering movement? ---on 2/28 @ 21:47 writes: Nejii, the way you put it, it sounds like a 100% ranged instakill that you can only stop by leaving the demesne would be overpowered, but if I'm not mistaken we already have that ---on 2/28 @ 21:50 writes: Sadhyra, I actually meant that you can use it in any room of your demesne (the other phantomsphere actions have the condition that you can't be in the same room as your phantomsphere). Rubble covers the entire demesne, so it'll be a hindrance, but no more than it already is for phantomsphere attack